Construction on the 105 story hotel first began in 1987. Because everything is bigger in the DPRK, it was to be the tallest hotel in the world. The Ryugyong was scheduled to open in time for the World Festival of Youth and Students that was being held in Pyyongyang in the summer of 1989, but the opening was delayed due to various construction-related problems. Construction was finally halted in 1992 due to a lack of funds, and the 3,000 hotel rooms and five revolving restaurants remain devoid of guests. The shell of the Ryugyong is the persistent eyesore of the Pyongyang skyline, and for several years the North Koreans denied its existence and airbrushed it out of official photographs.

However, construction on the Ryugyong restarted in April 2008 after a deal was struck with Orascom Telecom, an Egyptian company that won the rights to develop a cell phone network in North Korea. Completion of the hotel is now set for 2012, when North Korea will be celebrating the 100 year anniversary of Kim Il-Sung’s birth. I am still puzzled, however, as to why they need an additional 3,000 hotel rooms when they can’t even fill the 1,000 room Yanggakdo Hotel.